


The Old Ways

by unspeakable3



Series: welcome to the most noble and ancient house of black [90]
Category: Harry Potter - J. K. Rowling
Genre: Black Family Drama (Harry Potter), Black Family-centric (Harry Potter), Gen, POV Regulus Black, Prompt Fic, Prompt Fill, Prompt Posse, Regulus Black-centric, The Noble and Most Ancient House of Black, Young Sirius Black
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-01-06
Updated: 2020-01-06
Packaged: 2021-02-27 14:08:56
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,635
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/22138345
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/unspeakable3/pseuds/unspeakable3
Summary: “Sirius, do you… do you talk, to your friends?”“‘Course I talk to my friends, you idiot.”
Relationships: Regulus Black & Black Family, Regulus Black & Narcissa Black Malfoy, Regulus Black & Sirius Black, Sirius Black & Black Family
Series: welcome to the most noble and ancient house of black [90]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/1395592
Comments: 1
Kudos: 78





	The Old Ways

“Don’t be upset, Reggie.”

Regulus stared at his knees and tried very hard not to cry. Narcissa’s arm was warm and comforting around his shoulders in a way that his mother’s had never been. He was very tempted to lean against her and hug his knees to his chest and chew on his thumb until he stopped thinking about Sirius being forced into that cold, dark cupboard. Tempted, but not enough to risk being caught in such a _soft_ and _ill-mannered_ position by his mother - or worse, Bellatrix.

“You might think it a cruel punishment,” Narcissa continued, her voice gentle and soothing. “But this is just how things are done in our family. Our ways are the old ways; the pure and noble ways. Father did the same to Romy and Bella whenever they acted out.”

He sniffed and fiddled with the hem of his shorts, looked down at his legs sticking out over the plush rug. His patent shoes were very shiny - if Sirius had only kept _his_ shoes as shiny, then none of this would have ever happened.

“I expect it will be a difficult lesson for Sirius to learn, but he will learn it in time. We are the Most Noble and Ancient House, are we not, little cousin? We must all learn to behave in a manner befitting of our station - _especially_ Sirius. When he comes of age he will be the one to stand beside your father and your grandfather to usher in a new generation of greatness for us Blacks.”

As Regulus nodded a tear dripped from his dark lashes and rolled down his plump pink cheeks, down his neck, sliding underneath the stiff collar of his shirt. Narcissa’s skirts rustled as she moved to kneel down in front of him; she gave his knee a sympathetic squeeze and conjured him a pretty embroidered handkerchief.

“Hush now, Reggie,” she said in a half-whisper. “Dry those tears.”

“Sorry Cissa,” he mumbled.

Regulus wiped at the wetness on his face and forced himself to look up at his cousin. The winter sunlight was streaming through the window behind her, lighting up her ice-blonde hair like a halo. Sirius had told him once that she was an angel come to life, and that’s why her hair was so light when all the rest of their family’s was dark. Regulus still wasn’t sure if his brother had been lying or not. It was so difficult to tell, with Sirius.

“You’re a big boy now. Big boys don’t cry, do they?”

“No, Cissa.”

He _was_ a big boy. He wanted _desperately_ to be a big boy, to be included in his brother and his cousins’ games, to follow their conversations and understand their jokes. He didn’t mind having to go to bed early or having Kreacher follow him around or even still having to wear shorts, but he did very much hate being called the baby of the family. He _wasn’t_ a baby.

With a deep, shuddering breath he rolled back his shoulders and sat up straight, just as he had been taught. His grey eyes still glistened with unshed tears but he forced his face into the stillness that he had practised so many times with the help of Kreacher and the bathroom mirror, and met Narcissa’s expectant gaze.

“There we are,” she said, rewarding him with one of her prettiest smiles. “There’s my Little King.”

He gave her a shy, trembly smile in return.

“Now Reggie. I want you to know that you can always talk to me about these sorts of things - about _family_ things - if you need to. But you mustn’t speak about it to anyone who isn’t one of us, do you understand?”

He nodded, slowly. He wondered if Evan counted - he was Narcissa’s cousin, not his, related to her through her mother’s side, but he and Regulus were the same age and would be going to Hogwarts together and hadn’t they all said that it was good to foster such a friendship? Sirius said that friends shared secrets and that’s why brothers were the best of friends, because brothers knew _all_ each other’s secrets, but was this something different?

“Your mother and father will have explained the Ministry to you, how our government has become too influenced by petty muggle matters, too distanced from our pureblood traditions. If you talk about our family to people who aren’t our family, they might get confused and they might want to interfere. You don’t want Aurors and the Ministry poking their noses into our affairs, do you?”

“No, Cissa.”

Evan was, technically, family. Even if he had a different last name. That was alright, then. But he’d talk to Sirius first - just as soon as Sirius was allowed out of the cupboard.

Narcissa smiled and kissed his forehead, then stood with another loud rustling of fabric and held her hand out to Regulus. “Come, now, let’s see if we can get some of those cherry scones from Kreacher.”

Eight years later and Sirius still hadn’t learnt his lesson: he hadn’t learnt to hold his tongue or school his expression or even keep his shoes polished. Sirius was still antagonising Mother like it was a sport, still getting into trouble at school _and_ at home. And the punishments were only getting worse - and the cupboards smaller - as he grew older.

Regulus couldn’t understand why it was so difficult for his brother to just _behave_.

And though Narcissa had promised him that he could always talk to her about these sorts of things, she had since married out of the family and moved to that ridiculous house in Wiltshire. Regulus couldn’t very well floo there every time Sirius got into a spat; he couldn’t imagine willingly subjecting himself to Lucius Malfoy on such a regular basis.

Worse, Evan just laughed it all off these days. Narcissa had been right - he didn’t understand. Nobody did, except for Regulus’s ridiculous, impulsive, bludger-headed brother and he never seemed to listen so what was the _point_ in any of it, anyway?

Regulus retrieved the healing kit from the hidden compartment in his desk drawer and tucked it into his pocket. With a great deal of effort, he slid up his heavy bedroom window. He hopped up onto the window sill and sent a pigeon indignantly flapping away, then hoisted himself up onto the small, flat space of roof that lay above and between his and Sirius’s bedrooms. He found his brother already huddled up there, knees tucked under his chin.

It was cold on the roof, and Sirius was smoking, but Regulus found that he didn’t particularly care. The smell of cigarettes was almost comforting to him now, because it meant the worst was over and Sirius had come through intact.

“Are you alright?” Regulus asked.

There was a heavy pause. Sirius stabbed his cigarette against a roof tile and flicked it over the edge, uncaring of what would happen should their mother find it littering the rose bushes. He immediately lit another.

“No,” Sirius said gruffly.

Regulus settled himself next to Sirius and gazed out across the London skyline, searching for the horizon that was just about visible between the higgledy-piggledy buildings and the dusty smog. He wondered how many Black brothers had sat in this very spot if any - imagining their father here was almost laughable - and wondered if the generations before them had watched the cityscape change from fields to timber-framed buildings, all squashed in together, to the towering cloud-reaching grey structures that dominated today.

He wondered if any Black heirs before Sirius had been quite so reckless and argumentative.

“I don’t see why you can’t just pretend to—”

“Drop it, Reg.”

“It can’t be _so_ difficult to just—”

“I said _drop it_.”

Regulus fell silent, not because he was scared of Sirius or because he felt as though he ought to be obedient towards him, but because he wasn’t in the mood to argue with his brother when he was already down. He wasn’t Bellatrix.

He glanced sideways at Sirius, assessing the damage. Bruising, a torn sleeve, a cut across the back of his hand: nothing _particularly_ bad. Nothing urgent, at least.

He sat and waited while Sirius finished another cigarette, watched his half-hearted attempts at turning the wispy smoke into shapes, and took a deep breath. “Sirius, do you… do you talk, to your friends?”

“‘Course I talk to my friends, you idiot.”

“I mean,” Regulus chewed his lip, wondering if he really wanted to hear the answer. “I mean, do you talk to them about _family_ stuff, about… about _our_ family stuff?”

Sirius kicked at a loose roof tile with the already-scuffed toe of his boot and shrugged. “Yeah.”

“Oh.”

Regulus frowned at the rooftops across the road and pulled the sleeves of his jumper over his knuckles, balling them in his hands. Sirius oughtn’t do that. Narcissa always said that people outside the family wouldn’t understand, and Sirius’s _friends_ certainly weren’t considered to be part of the family.

“I s’pose you’re going to go and grass me up to Mother,” Sirius sighed. “But just think, Reg: if you had friends, you’d be able to talk too!”

“I have friends!”

“Nah, you’re a Slytherin. Those are _associates_ , not friends.”

“I have friends,” he repeated, irritated.

Regulus glanced at his brother; Sirius was leaning back against the wall, that stupid smirk on his face. Prick.

“Here,” Regulus said, tossing the healing kit onto his ungrateful brother’s lap. “Sort yourself out. I’m off.”

“Have fun with your _imaginary friends_!” Sirius called out as Regulus clambered back down from the roof.

He slammed the window shut in response, and grabbed his cloak from its hook on the back of his bedroom door. He’d show Sirius. He had _friends_.

Well, _a_ friend.

He had Evan.

**Author's Note:**

> (written for the Hinny discord Prompt Posse #1: have you ever spoken up when you saw something going on that was wrong? Were you scared? What ended up happening?)


End file.
